The Interdependent World & Diplomacy

I think that the most significant change in the twentieth century was the increase in diplomacy resulting directly from growing number of international actors. The 20^th century world has become more interdependent. This new era has changed the so-far prevailing picture of the world politics- making it more pluralistic in terms of actors engaged in global interactions, and making those actors, in turn, more dependant on each other. From the neo-liberal point of view, still growing mutual dependence between actors in the international politics should be seen as a positive phenomenon as it creates the world wherein cooperation is a necessary feature. Since now on the actors in world politics were no longer able to cope with the problems on their own, they must have cooperated. The contemporary world has seen the emergence of many international organizations that were created to manage the interdependent system and facilitate cooperation between various actors in the global political arena. The number of member states of the United Nations has tripled since 1945- from 51 original members to 185 in 1997 and the number of international organizations has grown to nearly 6000. Moreover an open trade system resulted in growing number of international economic transactions over the past few decades. Movements of capital, goods and services, people and enterprises across international borders created highly interdependent world with complex web of economic relationships and links. Thus states were compelled to set up diplomatic relations with each other in order to coordinate the international behaviour in economic issue-area. In addition the ways that states were dealing with each other have altered more in the past three decades than over the 350 years since the Peace of Westphalia. Now not only foreign offices of different states have got direct contacts with each other but also other government departments are in touch with their counterparts in other countries.