Citizen Diplomacy

These years, Nepal’s relation with governments of both China and India has been characterized by mutual distrust — stimulating one after another misconstruction, leaving little space for strong trilateral relation. Official dialogue between governments always ends in vague resolutions with no concrete statements about our foreign relation. Not only in global context but also within our own territory government’s feeble and failed attempt to negotiate with its own people has been a challenging problem.

One of the misconceptions prevailing among public is that relations between countries is solely a function of government body and that diplomacy is primarily a government-to-government discourse. Actually, it is business person and professionals, unelected unit of society — be they students, scholars, writers or media personalities. There are several ways any normal citizen can become a part of international relations as well. .

Citizen diplomacy is demand of time because millions of citizens from our side and neighboring nations too seem more inclined to establish strong relation than current governments. Governmental- to- government relation are often narrowed by power and security policy, especially during political dispute. But on the other hand, Citizen Diplomacy is exclusively about the power of acceptance, the power of understanding other nationalities. Since there will always be political disagreements between governments, the challenge is to find resolution via citizen diplomacy. As nation is a combined whole of humans and their way of life. The most efficient procedure of nation- to -nation relation is through human relation where greater interests are mutually accomplished.

Citizens involvement in international affair is indeed a significant parts of how our country defines itself to the rest of the world and is critically vital for our national security as well as socio- economic well-being. Whilst the official decisions will ultimately be formulated by countries’ governments, the contribution of citizen diplomacy will develop circumstance favorable to positive outcomes. As citizen diplomacy is an informal means of international relation, there are ways governments can give common ground for people-to-people collaboration. Easing trade relation, increasing transport facilities between nations, and encouraging media, tourism, foreign employment, sports, and cultural exchanges are just a few strategies to create environment conducive to sustainable foreign relation. By having different nationalities assimilate with each other, some of the prejudices and bigotry against another national can be mutually relieved.

Today’s global politics demands the use soft power to enhance national reputation in international arena. For some globalizing nations, Citizen diplomacy act as strategic mechanism that a country’s government exercises to mobilize its resources to connect with foreign public (rather than their governments) and fulfill its national interests via different means, such as media broadcasting, cultural and professional exchanges, and so forth. However, the most crucial function of citizen diplomacy is to explain the nation’s goals and strategies to heterogeneous mass, in order to achieve global prospect. Thus, for Nepal to have foreign goodwill with it’s both neighbor, our government need to utilize all means of soft power, of which citizen diplomacy is important one.